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94 ring that lay at the bottom, and ran out, and as soon as she got outside she knew him again, and fell on his neck and kissed him, all shaggy as he was, for you may fancy, he had neither lather nor razor on his beard for seven years.



But now the king came after, and wanted to know the meaning of all this fondling between them. So they were brought into a room, and told the whole story from first to last. Then the king bade them go and fetch a barber, and scrape the bristles off him, and trim him, and a tailor with a new court dress, and then the king went into the bridal hall, and asked the bridegroom, that emperor's son, what doom should be passed on one who had robbed a man both of life and honour.

He answered, "Such a scoundrel should be first hanged on a gallows, and then his body should be burnt quick."

So he was taken at his word, and suffered the doom that he uttered over himself, and the shopboy was wedded to the king's daughter, and lived both long and luckily.